Pointing instruments that can highlight a position or region on a target object, in the local coordinate system of that object, can provide valuable point-of-use information for applications in areas such as: manufacturing; construction; and entertainment. A system that is easy to set up and use and is affordable would enable many types of positional applications that may have been hard to justify using existing systems that can perform object targeting. There are costly, commercially available pointing instrument systems and methods of operation which allow the instrument to perform distance measurements or project patterns onto a surface. Examples include interferometer based trackers, electronic distance measurement laser-based systems, surveying and construction equipment, motion capture systems, and laser projection systems such as laser radar projection systems. A disadvantage of the existing systems is the high cost of the equipment, as described above, as well as the costs associated with the extensive user training required to use some of these systems.
Existing laser projection systems, like those used to indicate contour locations for manufacturing applications or to project images for laser light shows, use methods which typically project only onto flat surfaces. This limits the potential projected surfaces to flat targets that are perpendicular to the laser alignment, and for displays which are expected to be viewed with the proper perspective from locations with narrow viewing angle. If the viewing angle is not close to zero, the resulting display image will be distorted.
What is needed is an improved method involving a pointing instrument which allows, in one example, a more affordable pointing instrument system to be used.